Photonic Crystal Fiber Interferometers (PCFIs) are greatly used
for sensing applications. This work presents the fabrication and
characterization of a relative humidity sensor based on Mach-
Zehnder Interferometer (MZI), which operates in reflection mode.
The humidity sensor operation based on the adsorption and
desorption of water vapour at the silica-air interface within the PCF.
The fabrication of this sensor is simple, it only includes splicing and
cleaving the PCF with SMF.PCF (LMA-10) with a certain length
spliced to SMF (Corning-28).
The spectrum of PCFI exhibits good sensitivity to humidity
variations. The PCFI response is observed for a range of humidity
values from (27% RH to 85% RH), the position of the interference
peaks is found to be shifted to longer wavelength with humidity
increasing. In this work, a different length of PCFs are used, and the
maximum humidity sensitivity of (5.86 pm / %RH) is achieved with
(4.5cm) PCF length, and the rise time of (8sec) is achieved. This
humidity sensor has distinguished features as that it does not require
the use of a hygroscopic material, robust, compact size, immunity to
electromagnetic interference, and it has potential applications for
high humidity environments.
Eco-friendly materials are increasingly used in civil engineering to support sustainable development. Conventional concrete relies heavily on Ordinary Portland Cement (OPC), the production of which contributes significantly to the carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions. Ground Granulated Blast Furnace Slag (GGBFS) and fly ash can partially replace OPC, thereby reducing the environmental impact. This study investigates the effect of basalt fiber incorporation on the mechanical properties of geopolymer lightweight concrete. The concrete mixtures consisted of fly ash, slag, pumice aggregate, sand, and an alkaline activator prepared by combining sodium hydroxide and sodium silicate. The mix design included an activator-to-binder ratio of 0.45
... Show MoreMany studies have been published to address the growing issues in wireless communication systems. Space-Time Block Coding (STBC) is an effective and practical MIMO-OFDM application that can address such issues. It is a powerful tool for increasing wireless performance by coding data symbols and transmitting diversity using several antennas. The most significant challenge is to recover the transmitted signal through a time-varying multipath fading channel and obtain a precise channel estimation to recover the transmitted information symbols. This work considers different pilot patterns for channel estimation and equalization in MIMO-OFDM systems. The pilot patterns fall under two general types: comb and block types, with
... Show MoreDirectional Compact Geographic Forwarding (DCGF) routing protocol promises a minimal overhead generation by utilizing a smart antenna and Quality of Service (QoS) aware aggregation. However, DCGF was tested only in the attack-free scenario without involving the security elements. Therefore, an investigation was conducted to examine the routing protocol algorithm whether it is secure against attack-based networks in the presence of Denial-of-Service (DoS) attack. This analysis on DoS attack was carried out using a single optimal attacker, A1, to investigate the impact of DoS attack on DCGF in a communication link. The study showed that DCGF does not perform efficiently in terms of packet delivery ratio and energy consumption even on a sin
... Show Moret-Self-Compacting Concrete (SCC) reduces environmental noise and has more workability. This research presents an investigation of the behavior of SCC under mechanical loading (impact loading). Two types of cement have been used to produce SCC mixtures, Ordinary Portland Cement (OPC) and Portland Limestone Cement (PLC), which reduces the emission of carbon dioxide during the manufacturing process. The mixes were reinforced with Carbon Fiber Reinforced Polymer (CFRP) which is usually used to improve the seismic performance of masonry walls, to replace lost steel reinforcements, or to increase column strength and ductility. Workability tests were carried out for fresh SCC. Prepared concrete slabs of 500×500×50mm were tested for lo
... Show MoreThe limitations of wireless sensor nodes are power, computational capabilities, and memory. This paper suggests a method to reduce the power consumption by a sensor node. This work is based on the analogy of the routing problem to distribute an electrical field in a physical media with a given density of charges. From this analogy a set of partial differential equations (Poisson's equation) is obtained. A finite difference method is utilized to solve this set numerically. Then a parallel implementation is presented. The parallel implementation is based on domain decomposition, where the original calculation domain is decomposed into several blocks, each of which given to a processing element. All nodes then execute computations in parall
... Show MoreZinc oxide (ZnO) nanostructures were synthesized through the hydrothermal method at various conditions growth times (6,7 and 8 hrs.) and a growth temperature (70, 90, and 100 ºC). The prepared ZnO nanostructure samples were described using scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and X-ray diffractometer to distinguish their surface morphologies and crystal structures. The ZnO samples were confirmed to have the same crystal type, with different densities and dimensions (diameter and length). The obtained ZnO nanostructures were used to manufacture gas sensors for NO2 gas detection. Sensing characteristics for the fabricated sensor to NO2 gas were examined at different operating temperatures (180, 200, 220, and 240) ºC with a low gas concentrati
... Show MorePolyacrylonitrile:Polypyrole (PAN:PPy) undoped and doped with graphene Nano composites were synthesized using casting methods. Optical properties were utilized to describe the effect of composite ratio PAN/PPy as well as doping with Nanoscale graphene on the energy gap and the optical constants. PAN/PPy undoped and doped with Nanoscale graphene was used to detect gas nitrogen dioxide. In this article, the effect of mixing PAN with PPy at different weight ratios without addition and with the addition of 2% nanoscale graphene to the previous mixture on gas sensing performance on a large scale is explored. The results showed that doping with graphene enhanced the performance of gas sensing properties. Moreover, the article whic
... Show MoreThis research aims to create lightweight concrete mixtures containing waste from local sources, such as expanded polystyrene (EPS) beads and waste plastic fibers (WPFs), all are cheap or free in the Republic of Iraq and without charge. The modern, rigid, and mechanical properties of LWC were investigated, and the results were evaluated. Three mixtures were made, each with different proportions of plastic fibers (0.4%, 0.8%, 1.2%), in addition to a lightweight concrete mixture containing steak fibers (0.4%, 0.8%, 1.2%), in addition to a lightweight concrete mixture. It contains 20% EPS. The study found that the LWC caused by the addition of WPFs reduced the density (lightweight) of the concrete mixtures because EPS tends
... Show MoreA reinforced concrete frame is referred as "RIGID FRAMES". However, researches indicate that the Beam-Column joint (BCJ) is definitely not rigid. In addition, extensive research shows that failure may occur at the joint instead of in the beam or the column. Joint failure is known to be a catastrophic type which is difficult to repair.
This study was carried out to investigate the effect of hoops and column axial load on the shear strength of high-strength fiber reinforced Beam-Column Joints by using a numerical model based on finite element method using computer program ANSYS (Version 11.0). The variables are: diameter of hoops and magnitude of column axial load.
The theoretical results obtained from ANSYS program are in a good a